Designated Fat Girl (4 page)

It didn’t help that a great deal of my eating was in the car, either commuting to and from work or—worse—sneaking out of the house to eat, telling Michael I was going to the store or running some other errand. Mealtimes for fat people are not the social gatherings that others enjoy. Instead they are desperate
times filled with self-hatred and broken promises. When the eating is finished, the deal making begins. And on and on it goes.

Sometimes I wonder how many cheeseburgers I’ve had in my lifetime, how many french fries I have eaten. How much space would all of my trash take up at the landfill? I swear, with all the meals I have purchased, I wonder, how could I have never won one of those fast-food giveaways? You know, like the Monopoly games at McDonald’s? Certainly my odds at winning were better than most. But alas, I have not won anything from eating fast food.

When it became vogue to sue fast-food chains for various reasons, I had to chuckle. Were these people really serious? Yes, fast food had done a ton of damage to my health and to my happiness, but whose fault was that? Could I ever blame someone else for something I chose to do, even though I felt powerless to stop it? I think we all know that large quantities of fast food are harmful to the body, and we don’t need movies like
Super Size Me
to prove it. I suppose eating fast food for our generation is like smoking was to our parents’ generation. Smoking for my parents was the cool, cheap way to get your kicks. But now we know how harmful it is to the body, and our parents are hopelessly addicted. My generation has gotten used to fast food as a cheap and convenient way to eat, but we’re starting to see how bad it is for our health. Hopefully it’s a lesson we can help our kids learn early.

Now that I am a parent, I am so completely paranoid about what and how my kids eat. I really don’t blame my parents for the way I turned out, yet I know that if I’d had a better
idea of healthier eating habits from an earlier age, then perhaps the struggle wouldn’t have been so mighty. In any case, I vowed not to let my kids eat crap. When my daughter, Emma, was just three months old, I caught my brother about to put his finger in her mouth, a finger that held the slightest dollop of whipped cream from a piece of apple pie. My mother was holding Emma and smiling broadly as Uncle Jimmy prepared to give her a treat. My screams caused Jimmy to jump back, and my mother almost dropped the baby. “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” I shrieked, grabbing Emma in a huff. How dare they do something like that! Of course, they thought I was overreacting, but really, three months old? Yeah, I think that’s a little early. Besides, couldn’t they understand where I was coming from? I simply wanted to avoid future heartache for my child.

So I scrutinize everything that goes into my kids’ mouths. But much to my chagrin, I have a couple of picky eaters to raise. On the one hand, both Emma and my son, Eli, will eat almost any kind of fruit. That makes my heart sing, especially since I don’t touch the stuff. Vegetables are a different story. Emma will eat broccoli, but only with cheese. She’ll eat green beans, begrudgingly. She’ll eat green lettuce and cucumbers—and every once in a while, a raw carrot or two. But that’s about it. And Eli, at four years old, won’t let any vegetables come near him. Nothing. I bribe, I plead, I beg, but it’s not happening. Still, they don’t drink soda, and we limit fast food to the “rare” category. Emma will drink her weight in milk, and Eli likes apple juice a little too much, but at least they’re doing much better than I ever did as a kid.

Eating has always been an issue for me, and I suppose it always will be. Again, I can’t help but be a little jealous of a substance abuser. When a drug addict begins recovery, he can plan to avoid situations in which he’s tempted to indulge. A food addict isn’t so lucky. I have to eat in order to live. And temptation is everywhere.

If I’m really quiet, maybe no one will hear me. I listen as high
heels click-clack on the tile floor, making their way to the stall on the far side of the television station’s public bathroom. Whoever she is, she’s fast. Just barely a minute, and she’s already done her business, flushed, and is now washing her hands. I imagine her fixing her hair in the mirror as I hear the clang of bangles coming together. One of the anchors, no doubt. I pray that her primping will be brief, and mercifully, it is. The nameless, faceless woman click-clacks her way out the door, and once again I am alone, huddled down in a stall.

I’m ready for the tears to come—am willing them out of me—but curiously, nothing. I know the cry is there; the sorrow building in my chest threatens to cut off my very breath. I just want it out, I just want to release it, be free of it, make it finally happen so I can begin to let it go. But … nothing. Can’t make myself cry. Can’t feel the pain anymore. I’m numb.

I start to go over the events of the last hour, hoping the recollection will make the dam burst. I arrived at work a little before 5:00 p.m., ready for my evening shift as a reporter for WPDE-TV in Florence, South Carolina. It was only a part-time job, but I was just twenty-one years old, a junior in college. I wasn’t even
out of school yet, and I’d already landed an on-air television gig. Everyone told me that was unheard of, that my future was as bright as they come. Funny … there’s nothing bright as I sit alone in a dingy bathroom trying to make myself sob.

My assignment this evening is to cover a PTA meeting at a local high school. It makes me chuckle when I think of how people think the life of a TV reporter is glamorous; I was going to spend my night in a school cafeteria, trying to get parents to talk to me about the rising rate of student violence. I was going to drive myself to the story (and I was horrible with directions), lug about forty pounds of camera equipment all alone, and shoot and edit the story myself, all on a 10:00 p.m. deadline. Glamorous? Hardly. Stressful? Unbelievably so, especially when you consider the current state of my affairs: I had just hit two hundred pounds. I was constantly paranoid that my bosses would fire me at any minute; after all, how many fat people do you see on TV? I felt their eyes on me as I walked around the newsroom, and I tried to brush it off, tried to feel better by reminding myself I had been good all week. I was limiting my calories, sticking to diet sodas, and watching my portion sizes. I had managed to walk a couple of miles at the campus track three times that week and had plans to do it again the next day. I hadn’t yet stepped on the scale, but I was starting to feel somewhat confident in my efforts. Surely this would work! In no time I would lose the twenty pounds I’d gained since I started working there, and I would keep right on losing. My career would be set, and I would
be so happy, finally so fulfilled. I keep telling myself that as I work, trying to avoid the prying eyes of the newsroom.

Because my meeting doesn’t start until 7:00 p.m., my job is to help everyone prepare for the 6:00 p.m. newscast. Again, say good-bye to all the glamorous television news life theories—that prep work includes ripping apart scripts and sorting them into piles for the news and sports anchors, as well as for the director and producer of the show. I am also asked to run the teleprompter for the newscast—meaning I have to sit off to the side of the set and operate the conveyor belt that carries the words the anchors read on-screen. It is mind-numbing work, but I just chalk it up to paying my dues. I settle into the cold studio for what I expect will be an uneventful newscast.

Five minutes in the scurrying begins. Our weather anchor originated out of another studio hundreds of miles away in Myrtle Beach, but the feed for his shot is down. Everyone scrambles, trying to find a replacement, someone who can do the weather at the last minute, from our studio. “Go find Steve Hawley! He’s done weather before!” One of the anchors calls out during a commercial break. A moment later Steve rushes into the studio, out of breath. “I didn’t bring my jacket today!” He has a shirt and tie, but because he’d helped sports earlier, he doesn’t have his blazer. We all look at each other helplessly as the floor manager ticks down how long we have until the commercial break is over. “Thirty seconds!”

Steve looks over at me, reluctantly. As he starts to walk over, I’m confused. How can I help? “Twenty seconds!”

Steve picks up the pace. “Jennifer!” he whispers, urgently. “I need your jacket!”

I don’t have time to be embarrassed, humiliated. And I suppose I don’t think to be right away. Time is of the essence, and I’m in a hurry to help any way I can. I jump up from the teleprompter station and take off my black blazer. It isn’t until Steve throws it on, and not only does it fit, but it is a little loose, that the lump starts to form in my throat. Steve is not a small man; he is over six feet tall and has a nice masculine build. The fact that my jacket fits him makes my cheeks flush and my eyes smart instantly. Everyone in the studio looks away immediately, suddenly very busy with getting into place and shuffling papers. Steve makes it over to the weather wall just as the floor manager ticks down the final seconds with his hand. Crisis averted. The show goes on.

I sit at my teleprompter station, and, as discreetly as I can, untuck the purple shell out of my black skirt. No need to add to my humiliation by having the fat rolls once disguised by my jacket now on display. Tears threaten to spill over, but I can’t allow it. What has happened is bad enough; I don’t want to add to my humiliation at this point.

The weather segment ends, and Steve walks over to me, sheepishly. With as little fanfare as possible, he takes off the jacket and hands it over. “You’re a lifesaver!” he says, a little too enthusiastically. I beam up at him, my smile equaling his banter. “No problem!” I reply. He quickly shuffles out, and I quickly put the coat back on as discreetly as I can.

The rest of the newscast is a blur. I bite my lip and focus on the teleprompter belt, pushing the tears as far down as I can. My face feels hot, and I can’t look at anyone. When the final credits wrap, I bolt.

I already feel as though I could be fired at any minute because of how I look, and this certainly doesn’t do anything to boost my confidence. I’m a rookie reporter with limited experience, and my weight is definitely an issue. How long can it be before they let me go? Every day I fear I will get called into the news director’s office and given the boot. I’m incredibly anxious, and my anxiety drives me to eat. It’s a vicious cycle.

It was a miracle I was even in a newsroom in the first place. Growing up chubby and with low self-esteem, you wouldn’t think I would conclude that broadcast journalism was the perfect career choice for me. Indeed I feared from the beginning my looks would be a sticking point, a fact that I would have to work around. But I’d always known since I was a little girl that I wanted to be a reporter. I can remember starting my own newspaper when I was nine years old, the
Neighborhood Observer.
I would ride around on my purple bike with the pink basket, gathering news stories about the Walkers’ cat who was missing or the exchange student staying at the Davenport house. I’d type up the stories and deliver them to my neighbors, ringing the doorbell and running away in my shyness. As a freshman in high school, I became the representative of my high school for the Saturday page of the local newspaper—a real job that paid real money! News just fit with me, it felt natural.

Public speaking also came very naturally to me. I couldn’t hold a tune, and acting wasn’t my thing, so instead of singing or performing, I was always chosen to host school choir events
or serve as narrator for school plays. In high school I got to make the announcements on the loudspeaker every afternoon, something that gave me such a rush. I really enjoyed being the one telling people what was going on.

Around my junior year of high school I put the two skills together and decided I should go after broadcast journalism. I knew I had reporting skills, and everyone told me I had a good voice. I also knew that my looks were average at best, and my weight was an issue. But back then it wasn’t too hard to imagine that I could be on television. Not everyone looked like a Barbie doll, and I just figured my skills and hard work would make up for any physical shortcomings. I found a college with an excellent broadcast journalism department and I went for it.

As a freshman at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke, I shined. The school ran its own television station, and I immediately set my sights on being a news anchor. It was a small enough program that I got my audition pretty quickly. I tried out for weatherperson, and I nailed it. I was ecstatic when I got the job and thrilled that I was on my way to realizing my dream.

I have WPSU-TV to thank for my first real on-air job; I also have the television station to thank for introducing me to my future husband! Michael was a senior and a whiz at all things technical. I was miserably inept at running the equipment, and Michael took me under his wing and helped me out. I was head over heels in no time, and by the end of my freshman year, we were inseparable.

My sophomore year I heard about the Florence job and felt I had to try to get it. The pay was extremely low and the distance was great, but I knew it was an amazing opportunity,
one that I had to at least give a shot. I was about 180 pounds at the time, my journey of real weight gain just beginning. I was ashamed of my appearance, but I didn’t let it stop me. I bought the best size-16 suit I could find, and I got my hair professionally styled for my job interview. I went in and tried not to vomit from fear as the news director led me to his office. He was a very nice man, and we talked easily. He suggested I go up on the anchor desk and try reading from the teleprompter. An impromptu audition, if you will. I practiced deep breathing as I sat and waited for the lighting to be adjusted. Soon I was given a cue, and I read the script. It was a good audition. I felt great about my delivery, and I thought things were going pretty well.

The news director came out of the booth and joined me at the desk. “You are a natural,” he said, and I beamed. My instincts were right; I was made for this kind of job! I was still shining when he leaned in to talk to me more quietly. “Can I give you some advice?” he asked. I nodded eagerly, waiting to soak in any and all information that would help me fulfill my dream. “You may want to try sitting at a slight angle,” he said, still talking low so that the others in the crew couldn’t hear him. I must have looked confused, because he went on to explain. “When I was a reporter, I was quite heavy,” he started slowly. “When I was on the air, I learned to sit at an angle so I didn’t look so broad to the viewer,” he smiled warmly and patted my arm. I nodded and swallowed hard. I had hoped my looks, and especially my weight, wouldn’t be a factor this early in the game. And I had thought the interview had gone so well. But clearly the news director was so distracted by my girth that he was forced to give me this advice. As he led me back into the
newsroom, I steeled myself to receive the bad news: I wasn’t going to get the job. I was simply too fat.

Surprisingly I was wrong. The news director offered me the job on the spot. I tried not to look too surprised as I happily accepted. I did it! I actually landed a real job at a real television station! Despite my looks! For a moment I was on cloud nine.

The moment didn’t last very long. I was paranoid from the moment I started working there, surrounded by gorgeous, skinny twentysomethings who, like me, were hungry to get their careers started, but didn’t face the physical challenges I did. My female coworkers wore cute tailored jackets and skirts; I struggled to find size-18 clothes that were suitable for me to wear on the air and didn’t make me look as though I was wearing a circus tent. We all had to shoot our own stories, and it was physically taxing to lug around all the camera equipment. I would return to the station, huffing, puffing, and sweating from an evening of gathering news, hoping no one noticed my ill-fitting clothes or red, slick-with-perspiration face. One of the interns in the station told me that a reporter from a competing station had stopped him to ask about me, referring to me as “the healthy new reporter.” I laughed it off, but boy did it sting, and I began to imagine that everyone was talking about the fat new girl, wondering how she’d landed the job. While my weight hadn’t kept me from getting hired, I just knew that it would eventually cost me my job. And the more I worried, the more I ate … and the cycle continued. I just couldn’t get a grip.